There is a technique in the related art for moving data and an application stored in a local environment such as in a company to a cloud server in a virtualization environment and allowing a user to use the data and the application via the Internet. The construction of such a virtualization environment and the migration of data and an application to a cloud server are performed by administrators having expert knowledge (hereinafter referred to as Information Technology (IT) personnel).
Migration to a cloud server according to the related art will be described with reference to FIG. 12. FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating exemplary migration to a cloud server according to the related art. An exemplary case in which IT personnel perform migration from a Personal Computer (PC) server 800 to a cloud server 900 will be described with reference to FIG. 12.
As illustrated in FIG. 12, a Hard Disk Drive (HDD) 810 in the PC server 800 stores an Operating System (OS) 810a, an application 810b, and data 810c. In an HDD 910 in the cloud server 900, a virtualization environment 910a and an OS 910b having a new license are prepared in advance.
IT personnel install the application 810b (application soft 820) in the HDD 910 after deleting the application 810b from the HDD 810. Subsequently, IT personnel manually copy the data 810c. Thus, IT personnel perform the migration from the PC server 800 to the cloud server 900.
The migration to a cloud server puts IT personnel to much trouble. It is difficult for an average user who has no expert knowledge to perform the migration to a cloud server. In recent years, there has been automatic virtualization software with which the construction of a virtualization environment and the migration to a cloud server are automated. The migration to a virtualization environment performed with automatic virtualization software will be described with reference to FIG. 13.
FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating exemplary migration to a virtualization environment performed with automatic virtualization software. As illustrated in FIG. 13, the virtualization environment 910a is prepared in the HDD 910 in advance. When automatic virtualization software 830 is started, the OS 810a, the application 810b, and the data 810c stored in the HDD 810 are created as an image file 810d and the image file 810d is transferred to the HDD 910. In the HDD 910, the image file 810d performs a function similar to that of the HDD 810.
Thus, the automatic virtualization software simplifies the migration to a cloud server and allows an average user who has no expert knowledge to easily perform the migration to a cloud server.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2009-181249 and Japanese National Publication of International Patent Application No. 2002-519760 are examples of the related art.
However, the above-described related art causes license violation when the migration of software is automated.
More specifically, in a case where automatic virtualization software is used, software is installed in both a migration source HDD and a migration destination HDD. That is, the license violation of the software occurs. It is desired that the software installed in the migration source HDD not be deleted before the operation of the image file in the migration destination HDD is checked.
For example, in a case where the image file is transferred to the migration destination HDD after the software installed in the migration source HDD has been deleted, the software and the data are deleted. Accordingly, in a case where virtualization fails in the migration destination HDD, it is difficult to restore the migration source HDD to an original state.
In addition, since an average user who does not recognize the presence of a license can easily perform the construction of a virtualization environment and the migration to a cloud server, the software may not be deleted from the migration source HDD after the operation of the image file has been checked in the migration destination HDD.